ElegantThemes.com Review: Everything You Need to Know About Elegant Themes

Founded by Nick Roach in 2008, Elegant Themes is headquartered in San Francisco. The company provides 87 gorgeous WordPress themes and 4 premium themes to its more than 200,000 customers. It’s the perfect way to customize your WordPress site according to your needs and tastes without having to do an extensive amount of coding.

Elegant Themes Plans & Pricing

Elegant Themes is available in three different packages: the personal plan, the developer plan, and the lifetime access plan.

The personal plan is the simplest and at $39 per a year also the least expensive (though still comprehensive). It boasts complete access to all themes, perpetual theme updates, and premium technical support. The developer, the mid-range plan, tends to be the most popular. It comes complete with all of the features of the personal plan though for $50 more (this plan costs $89 per a year) you also get complete access to all plug-ins and layered Photoshop files. The last plan, the lifetime access plan, is the most comprehensive. In contrast to the first two plans there is no need to pay a month fee here. With a one-time fee of $249 you receive access to all themes and plug-ins, premium technical support, and layered Photoshop files, as well any themes released in the future for your entire life.

What I think about Elegant Themes

A quick snapshot on Elegant Themes member's download area.

The Good

Numerous Choices: The collection of themes is vast and varied. There truly are themes to suit every possible need, from blogs to business sites to ecommerce sites. You will most definitely be able to find something to suit both your needs and your tastes. And of course, the folks as Elegant Themes are always adding new themes so there are more options to choose from everyday.

Affordable: Prices are incredibly reasonable. With the $89 per a month plan, you’re essentially paying $1 per a theme.

Regular updates: Elegant Themes updates regularly and always provides technical support. It’s crucial to note that technical support is very, very important when it comes to dealing with Elegant Themes. Most people end up using pre-designed themes as the base of their design, altering the code along the way to tailor the design specifically to their needs. Therefore you need a development team constantly looking after theme development, as well as releasing updates whenever necessary. Furthermore, without a good, regular support you will inevitably waste a lot of time debugging and solving problems should something go wrong.

Ease of use: All in all, Elegant Themes is pretty easy to use, even if you’re a newbie; it doesn’t take too long to get the hang of things. Furthermore, Elegant Themes also works to ensure that themes are compatible with all major Internet browsers, including Firefox, Explorer, Safari, Chrome, etc.You can switch between browsers without having to worry.

The Not-So-Good

The Code: There are some issues with the code in some of themes; unfortunately, Nick’s code isn’t flawless. This issue is especially problematic in relation to some of newer themes that haven’t been as extensively tested. If you are worried about coding issues it is probably better to stick with some of the older themes. Though they may not be as novel the company has had more time to fix bugs. Furthermore, the older themes have been fully tested, which also mitigates any kind of coding issues.

In regards to code, there are also some reports of loading speed problems with sites that use ET themes. I personally didn’t have any kind of issue so I can’t really attest to this.

ePanel: ePanel is the customization dashboard at the backend and to be honest, I personally hate how it works.There aren’t any real performance issues but I feel it could have been a lot more user friendly. All in all, I just feel it’s been poorly designed.

Theme Highlights

When it comes to picking favorites, it is hard to narrow things down to just one theme. Every theme has different strengths and weaknesses and the best theme for you will largely depend on your specific needs. Here is a closer look at my favorite themes, categorized according to most appropriate use.

The Best Overall Themes

This is the latest theme from Elegant Themes and it is certainly stunning.

Elegant Themes describes it as “the smartest, most flexible theme in our collection.” And this description certainly rings true. Essentially Divi is an aggregation of a number of very powerful design features, giving you total control over the design of your site. The Divi Builder lets you create incredibly unique layouts. And the best part? You don’t ever need to worry about touching code. Of course, Divi also boasts responsive web design and pre-made page layouts.

As the name might suggest, this theme is incredibly versatile, able to evolve to perfectly conform to your needs. You will find a vast variety of pattern and color combinations, so you’ll never have to limit you’re websites evolution. Change colors with every season if you feel so inclined. In spite of the theme’s versatility, it is also marked by an elegant simplicity, making it very professional. This theme also boasts responsive design, page layouts, and short codes.

It is incredibly spacious for easy reading, designed with a full-width, long-format style. It also boasts a responsive design; Fable utilizes CSS media queries to trigger different layout sets to accommodate different screen sizes. No more zooming and scrolling on mobile phones or tablets. It also comes complete with page templates and short codes, meaning you can create complex designs without the hassle of having to deal with convulse code. All in all, Fable is simple, professional, and presents content that is easy readable. It’s the perfect theme for long-form bloggers.

The Best Themes for Photographers

If you are a photographer (or any kind of visual artist) your work needs to be situated front and center. After all, that ‘s what you want to attract your viewer’s attention. Look for themes with feature-rich media display options as well as visually driven layouts. Responsive design is also a crucial feature; you don’t want your photographs to display poorly on mobile sites.

Origin is a grid-based theme endowed with powerful narrative properties; it works to convey stories through image, filling the screen with photos.

This theme is perfect for artists who want to show off their work in a portfolio like site or for bloggers looking to give their readers an easy and attractive way to navigate through their many posts. The responsive design aspect of Origin is crucial here, as websites saturated with images can often be awkward to navigate on tablets and mobile devices.

Luckily, Origin, like many other ET themes, uses CSS media queries to trigger different layout sets to accommodate different screen size. You will never have to worry about users scrolling and zooming again.

The Best Themes for Businesses

When it comes to crafting business sites you need a layout that is sleek, professional, and easily navigable. You never want visitors to have to spend time unnecessarily searching for essential information.

It has a strict, grid-based organization theme, so it is guaranteed to be clutter free. All in all it is elegant and makes content incredibly easy to read. Navigation and viewing has never been so clean or so easy.

All in all, its foremost strengths are functionality and structure, but it still brings a visual appeal to the table as well. This theme boasts responsive design, ePanel, user-friendly navigation, flexible page layouts, and short codes.

The Bottom Line

My experience with Elegant Themes was overall quite positive and I would most definitely recommend the service.

It is affordable and easy to use, and the customization options are pretty much endless. Whether you are a casual blogger or an experienced businessman, Elegant Themes is not only a great way to enhance the aesthetic appeal of your website, it also helps to make your site navigable and more user friendly, which is good for attracting more traffic and boosting business.

About Jerry Low

Founder of WebHostingSecretRevealed.net (WHSR) - a hosting review trusted and used by 100,000's users. More than 15 years experience in web hosting, affiliate marketing, and SEO. Contributor to ProBlogger.net, Business.com, SocialMediaToday.com, and more.

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